The Chicken Whisperer's Guide to Keeping Chickens, Revised: Everything you need to know. . . and didn't know you needed to know about backyard and urban chickens

by Andy Schneider, Brigid McCrea Ph.D. (With)

Overview

Your answer to the high price of eggs—keeping chickens—is also a fun way to reconnect with nature and your food sources. This is your down-to-earth, common-sense guide.

Ditch the super-technical manuals and discover the joys and benefits of a backyard flock, and how to keep it healthy and happy, with poultry personality Andy Schneider, aka the Chicken Whisperer. In this revised and expanded edition of The Chicken Whisperer’s Guide to Keeping Chickens, Andy tells you everything you need to know about raising a backyard flock! This easygoing, comprehensive guide is a perfect fit for your busy lifestyle.

Inside, you’ll learn about:

• The benefits of a backyard chicken flock
• The art of incubation
• Living with brooding hens
• Setting up coops and runs
• Proper poultry nutrition
• Preventing and treating common illnesses and ailments

And that’s just for a start, so why not start your flock today?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631593123
Publisher:	Quarry Books
Publication date:	07/15/2017
Series:	Chicken Whisperer's Guides Series , #1
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Andy Schneider, better known as the Chicken Whisperer, has become the go-to guy for anything chickens. Over the years, he has helped a countless number of people start their very own backyard flocks. He is not only a well-known radio personality, as host of the Backyard Poultry with the Chicken Whisperer radio show, but also the author of the books The Chicken Whisperer's Guide to Keeping Chickens, Chicken Fact or Chicken Poop, and The Chicken Whisperer's Guide to Zero Waste Chicken Keeping and a contributor for Mother Earth News, Grit magazine, and Farmers' Almanac. He is the national spokesperson for the USDA-APHIS Bio-Security for Birds Program and the Founder/Organizer of the Atlanta Backyard Poultry Meetup Group and many other Meetup Groups around the United States. He has been featured on CNN, HLN, Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, and NPR, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, The Economist, USA Today, New Life Journal, and other local and national publications. Andy has also been traveling around the US on the Chicken Whisperer Tour, educating people about the many benefits of keeping a small backyard flock of chickens. Andy and his wife Jen keep 35 chickens on their property just north of Atlanta, Georgia. Visit him online at chickenwhisperer.com.

Brigid A. McCrea, PhD, is a native of California and grew up both in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. She was introduced to farming through her local 4-H club and began her lifelong love of chickens by participating in poultry shows. Brigid pursued her interest in poultry science and cooperative extension through undergraduate and graduate research. She earned a BS and MS in avian sciences from University of California Davis and a PhD in poultry science from Auburn University. 

After completing her graduate program, she served as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California Davis with Dr. Francine Bradley. She gained valuable extension experience by participating in the execution of the Game Fowl Health Assurance Program, as well as the Poultry Health Inspection program. She took a position at Delaware State University in Dover, Delaware, where she was Assistant Professor and Extension Poultry Specialist. In that position, her efforts were aimed at meeting the needs of small flock and niche market poultry producers.

At Auburn University, she works as an extension specialist with 4-H Youth Development in the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. She is providing leadership over all the animal programs in the state, as well as developing or revising curriculum to meet the needs of the programs. She enjoys working with the thousands of youth in the state that have an interest in, and participate in, animal programs, including programs such as 4-H Chick Chain.

She is co-author of The Chicken Whisperer’s Guide to Keeping Chickens and The Chicken Whisperer's Guide to Zero Waste Chicken Keeping and contributing author of Chicken Fact or Chicken Poop, a regular contributor to the Plain Talk column in the Chicken Whisperer magazine, and a regular guest speaker on the Backyard Poultry with Andy the Chicken Whisperer radio show.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Power to the Poultry: The Growing Urban Chicken Movement 8

Chapter 2 Henology: Know Thy Hen for She is Great 18

Chapter 3 Backyard Outlaws: Are Chickens Allowed Where You Live? What Should You Do If They Aren't? 46

Chapter 4 Prep Work: Getting Your Home and Yard Ready 52

Chapter 5 Incubation: So You're Egg-Specting? 66

Chapter 6 The Art of Brooding: Preparing the Nursery for Your New Arrivals 78

Chapter 7 Home Sweet Home: Coops and Runs 94

Chapter 8 Safe and Sound: Protecting Your Flock from Predators 112

Chapter 9 Nutrition: Common Management Questions and Suggestions 122

Chapter 10 Illness and Ailments: Prevention and Treatment 134

Appendix I Egg Artistry: What to do with All Those Eggs (Besides Eat Them) 160

Appendix II Biosecurity 166

Resources 174

Index 178

Photographer Credits 183

About the Authors 184

Acknowledgements 184